we're all together now...missy and bill's four children. we spent the day together doing our last minute shopping and running errands.

we ended the evening with a dance party with missy. she hasn't completely mastered walking yet...but she loves to dance. she heard music on the credits of a special we were watching and she just started dancing. so we all started dancing. (the beast even tried to get in on it.) then missy started clapping, so we all started clapping. then she started giving us all high fives. she was squealing with delight.

(it is particularly delightful when she squeals because she smiles a huge smile and you can see that she only has four teeth...two on the top and two on the bottom.)

i thought to myself, "i wonder if they knew that even after they were gone, we would all make sure we were together."

tonight, i am thinking about mummy's sisters and her brother. i know they are missing her, too.

tonight i am feeling very lucky that my sisters and my brother are under this roof with me.

a year ago, today, we were all in a house full of love taking care of mummy. at the time, it was the saddest and sweetest time of my life. since then, things have become much more sad and life has continued to be sweet. it's a strange holiday season without mummy. one thing remains...there is still a house full of love on hornbeam drive. i will go there on sunday and we will celebrate together and miss her every single minute.

i'm a quitter.

i quit my job today. i work at a wonderful place that has consumed me for the past two years. it was a very difficult decision because i truly adore the people i work with. they are bright and funny and they are destined to do great things. i will continue to be their biggest fan.

i'll be there for a little bit of the new year and then i am leaving them, spending a few weeks prepping my house for sale and moving to los angeles.

in los angeles, i will work for the headquarters of the agency from which we seceded in march.

i started my advertising career there a million years ago.

i was still in college, living with mom and dad when i told mom that i was moving to l.a.. (you have to understand that — with the exception of going on a few vacations — i had never lived away from my parents.) i was afraid to tell mom that i had decided to move 3000 miles away. when i finally did, she said "we'll need to get you some dishes."

she paid for my one way ticket.

through the years, when i would come home for holidays, she would take me to dulles when it was time for me to return to california. in those pre-9/11 days, she would come into the main terminal and part with me at the shuttle that takes the passengers to the midfield terminal.

the last time she did that, i had a particularly hard time leaving her, but i did not want to show it. so i would look at her through the open doorway of the shuttle and smile. she would be standing there smiling back at me. i'd turn away and barely be able to stifle my sobs. then i'd pull myself together and turn back towards her smiling face. i'd repeat this until they closed the door and drove us away.

on my next trip home, she was getting ready to take me to the airport and i confessed to her that i had come completely undone the last time and asked her if i could have someone else take me. she said "oh thank god" because in between the times i turned to look at her...she was doing the same thing i was.

for the rest of her life, if she took me to the airport, she dropped me at the curb. the photo at the very beginning of this blog is one maura took of mummy at the airport curb on one of their trips to the airport. she set all of her kids free...encouraged us to follow our hearts and then hid the fact that it hurt her so much every time we left.

when she was sick and i was on the red-eye filling up that notebook with things that i needed to tell her...one of the things that i wrote was this:

"so you are going to die soon...and it does not look to me like you are walking towards a white light.

to me, it looks like you are getting on a shuttle to the midfield terminal at dulles and this time i am standing in the terminal watching you leave.

and we are both crying our eyes out then turning to each other and smiling so each will think the other hasn't noticed her fall apart.

and then you will go.

and then you will come back to me again and again and again."

i have felt her with me so much lately. i have never made a decision as big as the one i just made without her counsel. i'm like an amputee who still feels her missing toes.

mummy is in my "muscle memory." i know she is not here...but the whole of me still feels like calling her and asking her questions and sharing things with her. there is something oddly comforting about still having the profound need to talk to her.

when i finally made the decision to make the move to los angeles, things fell so easily in their place that it was eerie. and i know that if she were still here she would tell me that it was all gogo's doing. i feel mummy's hands all over this and i am at peace.

greg wojahn died a little over a week ago.
on friday, i went to his memorial service.

he was much too young to die, and by all accounts he had come into the best time of his life before he got sick.

having been down a parallel path with mummy, i truly understand the intimacy of fighting cancer with someone you love. so in an odd way i understand that while he was sick, he got to experience love on a level that was truly more intimate than the love we feel when all is well. and he was already a joyful, loving person.

i went to see a shrink after mummy was diagnosed. he was trying to prepare me for what was to come and he explained to me that people often become an exaggerated version of their very core when they face such incredible adversity. for example, jerks become bigger jerks. the recurring theme on friday was the grace and sweetness that greg exhibited throughout everything...the chemo,the spinal taps, everything. his very core was lovely.

as in mummy's case, he took care of everyone around him throughout the whole battle. he was their strength.

i've been away from l.a. for many years now, and i hadn't seen greg or his brothers for quite some time. all three of them have been very kind to me, and to my best friend gab, and to my little sister. they're all lovely, and so funny. but i have one more adjective that seemed to always stick with greg in particular and that was "faithful." he was a man of faith. that brought me a great deal of comfort on friday.

while i often catch myself living my life as if i were a hamster on a wheel, he was mindful of things and people and ideas and his underlying calm, his faith, allowed him to be "in the moment" in a way that i aspire to be.

another thing that was a gentle reminder on friday, was the clear picture that was painted by his memorial service. the message was clear, if we just do a good job loving the people around us we will be able to say our lives were well lived.

but i still think his life was way too short.